Red Square was often the scene of infantry and armor engagements, often quickly changing control between the Germans and Russians during the Battle of Stalingrad.

On September 17, 1942, an infantry assault was organized by Sgt. Daletski that had the intention of taking the square where the Germans had several MG42 emplacements set up, which failed with a high fatality rate. The next day, another attack was made by units of the 13th Guards Rifle Division, which was so low on supplies that there were only five rounds per every two men. After Sgt. Makarov and Pvt. Voronin made their way up to the top of an apartment building in one corner of the square and provided sniper fire the German lines crumbled and roughly one dozen Russians of the few hundred that participated in the charge secured the square and moved farther into the city.

By October, the Germans had once again taken Red Square, reinforcing trenches dug out on their side and windows in nearby buildings with numerous MG42s, cutting down any infantry advance. On October 3, Gen. Belov organized an armor assault to coincide with the concurrent infantry charge against the German positions that were slaughtering the men on the ground. Within a few minutes of the few T-34s that did make it to the square arriving, the Red Army had control once again of the area.

As the German 6th Army became surrounded and cut off in Stalingrad around the turn of 1942 into 1943, a small Wehrmacht infantry unit took control of the city hall to Stalingrad, which was on one end of Red Square. On January 15, 1943, Lt. Volsky led a single squad into the building and cleared it of its German defenders. They saw an immediate German counterattack from across the square, but held them back with rifle fire and one Panzerschreck rocket against a Sd. Kfz. 251.

The setting for both games seems to take influence from Enemy at the Gates and its famous opening scene, which depicts waves of Soviet troops being thrown against a wall of German troops, with horrifying, yet predictable results. The scene also depicts the main character - Vasili Zaitsev - surviving only by feigning death in the fountain in the same vein in which Dimitri Petrenko survives.